Social housing agencies and the governance of anti-social behaviour

Current policy and discourse concerning the governance of anti-social behaviour in the UK has emphasised the spatial concentration of disorder on particular social housing estates. Policy has sought to respond by devolving management of the processes of social control to local neighbourhoods. Local authorities, and social housing agencies in particular, are being given an increasing role within multi-agency partnerships aimed at governing local incidences of anti-social behaviour. This paper places this emerging role for social housing agencies within theories of governmentality and wider trends in urban governance and suggests that present developments may be understood through a paradigm of housing governance. Drawing on studies in Edinburgh and Glasgow, the paper examines the role of social housing agencies in the governance of anti-social behaviour. It argues that social housing agencies face a number of dilemmas in reacting to their emerging role and that such dilemmas reflect wider concerns about the new urban governance.